Yes, it’s The Onion and, no, it is not really about THR. And yet…
“Pfizer Breaks Psychological Need To Always Seek FDA’s Approval”
“Pfizer spokesman Vincent Martin announced that the company had achieved a major personal breakthrough Monday by finally summoning the courage and confidence to overcome its need to constantly seek the FDA’s approval. ‘We’ve spent so many years fretting and obsessing over what the FDA would think of our new drugs, when all that time, the only people we really should have been worried about pleasing was ourselves,’”
Full satire: http://www.theonion.com/articles/pfizer-breaks-psychological-need-to-always-seek-fd,20298/
It worked for Star Scientific and Njoy. (Cue Sinatra: “…I did it my way.”)

Some American youth apparently engaging in THR via pharma products
The authors seem oblivious to the possibility that “NRT” can be used for anything other than R and T, but they accidentally provide evidence of low-risk nicotine use in adolescents.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19819640

Are anti-tobacco extremists creating a “gateway” from low-risk products to smoking?
The “gateway” claim has always been a refuge for dishonest activists seeking to rationalize attacks on low-risk behaviors. While the evidence does not show that low-risk nicotine products are a gateway to smoking, if they were it would be due to the “they are just as bad for you” message from extremists. Restrictions on e-cigarettes are creating a market for less- or un-regulated nicotine-free versions, leading to claims (as in this story from Hong Kong) that these might cause smoking. While this seems unlikely where users have access to nicotine e-cigarettes, it is imaginable that prohibitions could create a path to easily-available cigarettes.South China Morning Post

“Health promotion” activism remains mired in 1990s
An article in American Journal of Health Promotion calls for just doing more of the same tobacco control strategies that have already been played out. The greatest threat to THR (which they do not even mention) remains that this field is dominated by people who mistake “I do not understand why this does not work” for “this works”.http://www.ajhpcontents.org.pinnacle.allenpress.com/doi/pdf/10.4278/ajhp.25.5.c1

Smokeless tobacco is cheaper, if price is the problem
A California man was arrested for a string of nicotine gum thefts. Since the thefts started last year, this is apparently evidence of off-label use for THR.http://www.ocregister.com/news/-298953–.html

Related Topics

Junk science claim that ETS increases boys’ blood pressure
It is difficult to imagine a better example of bad epidemiology. The data shows higher blood pressure among children with the lowest second-hand smoke exposure, but by looking at only one subgroup (and ignoring the bizarre dose-response relationship), the authors spin it as showing just the opposite.http://ep-ology.blogspot.com/2011/05/unhealthful-news-122-more-examples-of.html

Further evidence of smoking’s value for relieving PTSD
Too bad the authors insisted on spinning it as being about what creates a risk of smoking and not nicotine’s benefits, and implied that the relief was just a “belief” of those deluded smoking soldiers.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21523829

Nepal planning new anti-smoking measures
Good news: the pictoral warnings will be implemented several months after other provisions, making analysis of their specific effect possible (if anyone is honest enough to do it). Bad news: I would really hate to be a merchant trying to enforce the provision banning sales to pregnant women (“are you saying I look pregnant?!”). Also, most harms from chemical exposures are worst before the mother is showing (still not known for smoking), so it boggles the mind how they would enforce this when it matters.http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=Pledge+to+implement+anti-tobacco+bill+&NewsID=285485

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Role and History of this blog

This blog was created by Prof. Carl V Phillips's TobaccoHarmReduction.org research and education group at the University of Alberta School of Public Health. The earlier posts were the work product of that group. Subsequent to THRo leaving the UASPH, this blog continued as an independent project with no institutional affiliation. All content represents only the views of the individual author.
TobaccoHarmReduction.org and Phillips became part of CASAA in 2012. Phillips has remained an occasional contributor to this blog, but those contributions are one-off personal comments; he no longer has any editorial influence over other contributors. This blog has never been affiliated with CASAA.

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